The 14-24 was the first lens I purchased with my D800. I was mainly interested in it for night photography, thus the F2.8 to F5.6 range. My initial results I posted on this site in an earlier post, net I was not too pleased. Corners were soft and smeared, center was very good. By F7.1 to F8 excellent lens corner to corner, and this hold up to F14.
I worked with 3 different 14-24's and finally keeping the 3rd one. I found that by using Live view, with the Lloyd Chambers setting, that this particular lens did very well, still not stellar, but I figured I would have to upgrade to the Zeiss 21mm to get sharp corners wide open.
I recently was able to borrow a brand new Zeiss 21mm and a D800e. That was a great day! The results were surprising. I had to shoot this setup a couple of times to make sure of my results.
The 21mm Zeiss was considerably softer than 14-24 @21mm from F2.8 up to around F8. Once you got to F11, the Zeiss was laser sharp, but it was the performance in the F2.8 to F5.6 range I was hoping for.
Once I looked at both test shots side by side I realized that the Nikon 14-24 had a better hyperfocal distance than the 21mm Zeiss until you got to F11, then the Zeiss was a bit better. This was a surprise for me. My testing was pretty straight forward, I keep the lens level and then lay out a measuring tape and target for the near lower corner, then shoot up the range of apertures. Net, I was impressed enough with the results of the Nikon 14-24 to keep it. Here are a few observations.
The 14-24 is a beast, as already mentioned. It's heavy, and the lens cap design "sucks". For as expensive as the lens and the overall importance of the front element I am surprised by this.
The 21mm Zeiss, is tiny compared to the 14-24, takes standard filters and has an excellent hood. Flare is possible but not as bad as the 14.24.
The 14-24 will flare and you just have to be prepared for it. Most times I have found that you can spot out the flare with your hand, or a flare buster type of blocking device. Shooting towards or at the sun will be a disappointment unless you are prepared for this.
The 14-24 is relatively easy to polarize. You can hand hold a Schneider or Tiffen 5.65 x 5.65 square CL-PL in front of the lens. You don't get a issue with the lens hood tulips as I did with the Mamiya 28. This was a pleasant surprise. The 5.65 x 5.65 is large enough to hand hold and keep you fingers out of the shot. You do have to watch for the top of the filter and reflections back towards the camera, but this is easy enough to fix with a cover. It's not a pretty solution but it works. There are times where I like being able to use a CL-PL especially around water.
Lee doesn't make a big stopper for the 14-24, but High Tech/format does. It will fit the Lee 150 kit for the 14-24. It seems that High Tech may have some color cast issues, (see thread on LuLa). But you still have the option to get to 10x ND
Lloyd Chambers reports a focus shift issue on the 14-24. What you have at F2.8 may be off a bit by F5.6. I have not really seen much of this and I tend to dig into images pretty deep. I have used both Live View and AF for focus on the 14-24 and results have been pretty even. I am not sure if this mean that Nikon may have fixed the issue that Lloyd reported or if it's a issue that is not consistent across the 14-24 lineup.
I found color/contrast between the 21mm Zeiss and Nikon 14-24 to be very close using raw capture, and LR 4 or Capture One for conversion.
Sharpness to me was a wash, at 21mm the Nikon was equal to or better than the 21mm zeiss, due to the hyperfocal distance.
As of yet, I have not found any lens Nikon or non-Nikon that is really sharp in the corners of a D800 at F2.8 in the 14mm to 21mm range. I have not tried any Lecia glass however.
Paul Caldwell